A former Milwaukee police officer was sentenced Friday to 2 years in federal prison on a corruption conviction that grew from a 2009 sting operation.Royce Lockett helped an acquaintance, a former club owner who had become a federal informant, transport some cocaine, and then accepted $1,000 for his efforts. It was all caught on tape.
Lockett, 39, will also serve four years of supervised release after his prison term, but the sentence was far less than a minimum mandatory term of five years, and well under the guideline range of 46 to 57 months. He was allowed to surrender to a federal prison after November 15.
A so-called safety valve in the federal sentencing laws for drug crimes allow a first-time offender, who is not orchestrating a crime that doesn't involve guns or threats of violence, and who cooperates after arrest, to avoid the minimum mandatory sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Sanders told U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller that agents didn't start out to go after Lockett or other officers but were only acting on what appeared to be legitimate tips from the informant. He said Lockett offered valuable information about the practices of some other police officers, though not any that led to other arrests or prosecutions.
Sanders agreed that Lockett's case might merit a below-guidelines sentence.
Lockett's attorney, Dennis Coffey, told Stadtmueller that the crime was a one-time incident, and that in all other respects, Lockett has been a responsible military veteran, public servant and father.
Lockett told the court he realizes the mistake he made, but said he had no criminal intent or motivation when the informant first called him to ask for a ride. He said he assumed the man was his friend, not someone looking to prey on him to get out of his own legal jam.
Since his arrest, Lockett said, he's become a certified paralegal and lined up a job he could start next week.
"Sadly, you're not the first, and won't be the last, law enforcement officer to come before the court," Stadtmueller said, citing that even a former colleague of his, a federal judge in Georgia, got caught up with a drug dealer. "I appreciate the harsh reality that we're all human," he said.
But because the integrity of law enforcement is so critical to the community, the judge said, Lockett's offense, limited as it was, required he serve prison time.
Investigators began looking at Lockett and fellow officer Paul Hill after a drug dealer turned informant told authorities they were among several at the Milwaukee Police Department who associated with drug traffickers.
He said Lockett and Hill frequented a club the informant co-owned.
According to court records, in June 2009 Lockett helped the informant transport more than four pounds of apparent cocaine and what Lockett believed was $19,000 in drug sale proceeds. As part of the sting, the informant showed Lockett the fake cocaine hidden in a hollowed out beer keg. Lockett agreed to give the informant a ride, but had someone else contact him about moving the supposed cocaine, then accepted $1,000 for driving the drug dealer.
The meeting was all being secretly recorded.
Lockett had been scheduled for a change of plea in January, but Coffey asked that it be postponed after his client expressed concerns about unspecified "consequential collateral consequences." He pleaded guilty March 30.
Lockett, who joined the Milwaukee police in 1997, resigned Feb. 8. He had been suspended with pay since his arrest in July 2010.
Hill's case remains pending in federal court. He is charged with helping the same informant transport what was represented to be $100,000 and $90,000 of illegal drug sale proceeds on two occasions that were also recorded as part of the sting.
